Dorsey, Musk bat for Bitcoin as future of renewable energy

Dorsey's digital payment services company Square and global asset manegement firm ARK Invest have jointly released a white paper on "Bitcoin as Key to an Abundant, Clean Energy Future".

New Delhi: Arguing for Bitcoin as a key driver of renewable energy’s future on Earth Day, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Tesla CEO Elon Musk have come forward to support the fast-growing cryptocurrency, saying that Bitcoin incentivises renewable energy.

Dorsey’s digital payment services company Square and global asset management firm ARK Invest have jointly released a white paper on “Bitcoin as Key to an Abundant, Clean Energy Future”.

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In a tweet on Wednesday, Dorsey said: “Bitcoin incentivises renewable energy.”

Musk replied: “True,” after tweeting that starting next week, “Tesla Solar Panels and Solar Roof will only be sold as an integrated product ‘with’ Tesla Powerwall battery”.

In the white paper, Square and ARK Invest said that “the energy asset owners of today can become the essential bitcoin miners of tomorrow”.

The ‘Bitcoin Clean Energy Initiative’ has developed a short research paper as a “starting point to share our vision for how bitcoin mining — in conjunction with renewable energy and storage – is especially well suited to accelerate
the energy transition”.

To complement this work, ARK Invest has contributed an open source model that demonstrates how bitcoin mining could augment these renewable + storage systems to supply a larger percentage of a grid’s base-load energy demand for comparable or lower cost unit economics.

“Bitcoin miners are unique energy buyers in that they offer highly flexible and easily interruptible load, provide payout in a globally liquid cryptocurrency, and are completely location agnostic, requiring only an internet connection,” the paper read.

Bitcoin miners are an ideal complementary technology for renewables and storage.

“Combining generation with both storage and miners presents a better overall value proposition then building generation and storage alone,” the research paper noted.

“By combining miners with renewables + storage projects, we believe it could improve the returns for project investors and developers, moving more solar and wind projects into profitable territory,” it added.